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twitterLetter to the editor:
Government-run health care already working
Thursday, May 14, 2009 | 2:04 a.m.
A public health insurance option is a key provision of President Barack Obama’s health care proposal and is critical to meaningful reform. The option centers on respect for the health care consumer by ensuring choice, high-quality coverage and portability.
It would be an option: That is, if you have an insurance plan you like, keep it. If you don’t like the plan you have, or if you have no coverage, you may get the public insurance plan. With the public health plan you may choose your doctor. It will cost less because there are no big CEO bonuses, no stockholder dividends to pay and no advertising costs. You will not become uninsurable. If you move, you take it with you. You are insurable regardless of where you live — rural as well as urban Americans will get coverage. The major component of the plan is choice.
I have yet to hear anyone on Medicare complain about receiving Medicare coverage. And I’m always amused by the blustering by those who don’t want government running health care. Do they even know what federally funded health and research programs are ongoing? Do they know what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does? Have they heard of the Department of Veterans Affairs? The list is impressive, but they can do their own homework.
But the most hypocritical opposition of all is from federal elected officials who have yet to complain about the excellent health care plans that they have on the taxpayers’ dime. What makes them better than the rest of us?
Discussion: 16 comments so far…
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Hey Patricia' Why don't you ask 1000 Canadians' how much they love there state run healthcare system. You might not get the answer that your looking for. I will tell you these' at any given time 75% of all members of congress have never had a real job in there life or could not hold one' or never owned a business or did own one but later ran it into the ground. And now you somehow are going to trust them with these "power grab" WHY
We have a government run health care system called Medicaid. It is over promised and under funded. It makes private hospitals treat government "insured" people and doesn't pay anything near what it costs to do so. The hospitals are forced to over charge the rest of us to make it up. What happens when the entire system is over promised and under funded? We all suffer.
Let the federal government either pay what it costs to treat those it has already taken under its wing or set up government doctors and hospitals to care for them outside the system, like they do Veterans. Once they get that right the rest of us will flock to join....when they get it right.
I wonder who is responsible for underfunding Medicaid?
Healthcare in Canada:
http://www.hcic-sssc.ca/index_e.asp
The results are complex and it would be interesting to see the exact same questions put to the United States public.
Why do we have publicly-funded streets to drive on, but health care only for those who can afford nice cars or company-provided cars?
A society without universal health care is not a world leader.
"That is, if you have an insurance plan you like, keep it. If you don't like the plan you have, or if you have no coverage, you may get the public insurance plan."
What the Feds do is demand a lower payment fee structure which then causes cost shifting to private plans.
This drive up the cost of private plans which will drive people to the union controlled government plan.
When the government progressively take over all health plans then the government will determine WHO get WHAT health service and HOW long you wait.
It is a zero sum game
POWERPLAY: Forget the 1000 Canadians. Ask 47,000,00 uninsured Americans how they like their health care. 47 MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Does that make you proud to be an American?
GORDON,
Who could be proud of having 47 million of their own countrymen uninsured for health care, yet at the same time the government is spending more than 15% of its GDP on just healthcare, so where does this money go???????
On the contrary, Sweden spends only 9% of its GDP on total healthcare, all people who are living in Sweden can get health care. Here the service is excellent, one can see ones own doctor sometimes the same day, or at least talk to him or her, and waiting times are short. I waited only 2 weeks to get contrast xray, the cost $0, zero!!!
Medications are cheap, and a yearly limit is set at about $110, then medications are free.
Sweden spends only 9% of its GDP on total healthcare, all people who are living in Sweden can get health care. Here the service is excellent, one can see ones own doctor sometimes the same day, or at least talk to him or her, and waiting times are short. I waited only 2 weeks to get contrast xray, the cost $0, zero!!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I did not have to wait but a couple of days to get my X-rays and my insurance paid - I'm from England, and you can keep your "national health". I have never been so happy to leave a country like the UK - the trouble with Americans is that they are NOT happy/proud of being American. I became an American Citizen in 1985 and I LOVE AMERICA ... I know the difference between a country that does not have the advantages that America has. I have lived in Italy, Germany and the UK ... and these are NOT third world countries, yet I would NEVER live anywhere else in the world but in the USA. When we all feel like this we will have the American that the rest of the world envied at one time. We do NOT have to apologize for being Americans. We do more for the rest of the World than any known country .... please give me a break about 'our country not standing up to their principles' I am sick of hearing it.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22184921/
According to this 2007 article, the amount of fraud that medicare is the victim of each year is 60 Billion dollars. This simply must be fixed and any kind of reform or expansion must address this kind of waste. It seems to me that in this time of huge spending, guarding against waste and fraud should be a top priority. Big government spending is like chumming for those who will try to take advantage to do so.
uddeboda,
Critics of universal health care use the Canadian system as a comparison when there are plenty of examples of other systems that work well. Although the Canadians have some problems with wait times, most people are satisfied with their system.
Where does the money go in the US? Into the pockets of the executives of the health care providers and the bureaucracies they created ($130 million 1 year compensation for the CEO of Wellpoint Health Ins). I have "good" health insurance with a large part paid by my employer, but I still have out of pocket expenses of $6,000 per year.
A friend got sick while traveling in Europe and because he wasn't a citizen of Hungary he had to pay a total of $13.00 for a doctor visit and medication.
Except it isn't working. See U.S. Military health care and veterans care.
I have a crappy HMO and pay nothing (my employer pays the yearly premiums) except $5 bucks for an office visit and generic meds are free.
I am sure that the CEO of Wellpoint did not take that all in cash, most was probably in stocks. From what I can find ( http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/of... ), she only makes $1.1M with other compensation adding about $8.5M. And she is responsible for a company that generates over $60B.
The Wellpoint executive pay was a few years back to a male CEO, but in any case his or her salary and bonuses come from a higher number on the bottom line, aka CLAIM DENIED!
Some info on how much the previous executive took from a Wellpoint merger.
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients...
$194 million - That's how much Leonard D. Schaeffer, WellPoint's chairman and CEO, could reap once the merger is complete.
Patrick had a point about the veteran care. We are almost at an end of care for WWII vets and Korea and Vietnam are close behind. The problem is we have created another several decades of care being required for vets from Iraq I and II and Afghanistan.
Patrick had a point about the veteran care. We are almost at an end of care for WWII vets and Korea and Vietnam are close behind. The problem is we have created another several decades of care being required for vets from Iraq I and II and Afghanistan, and how many more countries are further down the road